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In its latest U.S. fiscal outlook, the nonpartisan CBO said the health law would lead some workers, particularly those with lower incomes, to limit their hours to avoid losing federal subsidies that Obamacare provides to help pay for health insurance and other healthcare costs.
....
CBO said the expected drop in work hours between 2017 and 2024 would result largely from worker decisions not to participate in the labor force, rather than from higher unemployment or the inability of part-time workers to find full-time hours.

"The estimated reduction stems almost entirely from a net decline in the amount of labor that workers choose to supply, rather than from a net drop in businesses' demand for labor," CBO said. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/04/us-usa-fiscal-obamacare-idUS
BREA131B120140204

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....become fodder for partisan attacks in this year's congressional election battle....Republicans, who have already made Obama's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) a top campaign issue for November, seized on the CBO report....

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"I think it’s important to distinguish between people choosing to work less and jobs being lost," said Larry Levitt, vice president at the non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation. "For example, some people in their late 50s and early 60s would like to retire because they have health issues but have kept working for the health benefits. Some of them can now retire because they can’t be discriminated against for having a pre-existing condition and may get help paying their premiums."

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ObamaCare could lead to loss of nearly 2.3 million US jobs, report says

...nearly 2.5 million workers could opt out of full-time jobs over the next 10 years -- allowing employers to wipe 2.3 million full-time jobs off the books. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/02/04/obamacare-expected-to-lead-
to-loss-nearly-25-million-american-jobs-report-says/

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Non-partisan CBO report admits #ObamaCare is hurting the economy, will cost 2.5 millions jobs. http://nrcc.me/1doOOA8 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2014/02/04/no-cbo-
did-not-say-obamacare-will-kill-2-million-jobs/

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This Shocking Government Report Confirms That ObamaCare Will Cost America 2 Million Jobs

A new report from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office should pour cold water on Democrats who continue to deny that ObamaCare is a massive burden on the economy.

According to the CBO, ObamaCare will push approximately 2 million workers out of the labor market by 2017, as the law’s perverse incentives and regulations roll into effect. The latest estimate from the CBO is substantially larger than its previous analysis.

The report also finds that the economic burden is most likely to be felt among low-wage employees. Instead of trying to score political points by attempting to raise the minimum wage, shouldn’t Democrats focus on repealing ObamaCare and providing real economic relief to American workers? http://www.nrcc.org/2014/02/04/shocking-government-report-confirms-oba
macare-will-cost-america-2-million-jobs/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=tweets_social_twitter_20140204_e_AB_v2

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No, CBO did not say Obamacare will kill 2 million jobs

Here we go again. During the 2012 campaign, The Fact Checker had to repeatedly explain that the Congressional Budget Office never said that the Affordable Care Act “killed” 800,000 jobs by 2021. Now, the CBO has released an updated estimate, nearly the triple the size of the earlier one: 2.3 million in 2021.

...the health insurance subsidies in the law (are) a substantial benefit that decreases as people earn more money, so at a certain point, a person has to choose between earning more money or continuing to get the maximum help with health insurance payments. In other words, people might work longer and harder, but actually earn no more, or earn even less, money.

Look at this way: If someone says they decided to leave their job for personal reasons, most people would not say they “lost” their jobs. They simply decided not to work.

The CBO, in its sober fashion, virtually screams that this is not about jobs. (Note the sections in bold face.)

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“The estimated reduction stems almost entirely from a net decline in the amount of labor that workers choose to supply, rather than from a net drop in businesses’ demand for labor, so it will appear almost entirely as a reduction in labor force participation and in hours worked relative to what would have occurred otherwise rather than as an increase in unemployment (that is, more workers seeking but not finding jobs) or underemployment (such as part-time workers who would prefer to work more hours per week).”

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The CBO did look at the effect on demand for labor (i.e., jobs) but said the effects are mostly on the margins or are not measurable. In fact, in contrast to a common GOP talking point, the CBO declares that “there is no compelling evidence that part-time employment has increased as a result of the ACA,” though it notes the data may be murky because the employer mandate was delayed until 2015.

In fact, competition for workers will initially lead to upward pressure on wages. But over time, the nation does end up with a slightly smaller economy.

Finally, we should note that the figures (2 million, etc.) are shorthand for full-time equivalent workers — a combination of two conclusions: fewer people looking for work and some people choosing to work fewer hours. The CBO added those two things and produced a hard number, but it actually does not mean 2 million fewer workers. (This is also off a base of more than 160 million people, meaning the number of fewer workers is a relatively small percentage of the overall pie.)

In fact, no one really knows what percentage will leave the work force entirely and what percentage will shift to part-time work, making it difficult to predict how this will shake out in the end.

Once again, we award Three Pinocchios to anyone who deliberately gets this wrong.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2014/02/04/no-cbo-
did-not-say-obamacare-will-kill-2-million-jobs/

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CBO expects the law to have "small or negligible" effects on labor demand in most parts of the economy. http://www.businessinsider.com/cbo-report-obamacare-discouraging-work-
2014-2#ixzz2sVudJdTb

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The main effects will come on the labor supply side. This has important implications for wages: While a decline in labor demand will tend to reduce wages, a withdrawal of labor supply may actually help push them up, as employers compete to hire from a reduced pool of available workers.

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The work-discouraging income effect from Obamacare is mostly good. The pre-Obamacare health policy status quo, which focused heavily on tying insurance to full-time employment, provided a strong incentive for people to be full-time employed. Easy availability of comprehensive, subsidized health plans will make it easier for people to retire before age 65, quit a full-time job to start a business, or shift to part-time work and spend more time raising children or attending school. This is a feature, not a bug. As a Senior White House Official pointed out on a press call this afternoon, Social Security and Medicare reduce employment among seniors; this (making retirement possible) is a key aim of those programs, not a negative side-effect.

The work-discouraging substitution effect from Obamacare is clearly bad. For workers who rely on health insurance subsidies created by the law, Obamacare will reduce the marginal return to labor: That is, they'll get less after-tax income for working one more hour. This is because a higher income will mean a smaller health plan subsidy. The effective tax rate will vary based on individual circumstances. For workers who work only part of the year (and therefore can get a cheap subsidized plan during the part of the year they're unemployed) CBO pegs the typical tax rate at 15%. For a single adult with a low or moderate income who works all year without employer-based health coverage, my back-of-the-envelope math puts the tax rate around 10%.

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Any alternative policy to significantly expand health coverage will also have income and substitution effects that reduce labor supply. If you give out subsidies for health insurance that aren't tied to employment, you'll create an income effect that makes it easier for people to work less. If you phase out those subsidies, you'll create a substitution effect that encourages people to work fewer hours. (For example, the Republican Coburn-Burr-Hatch Obamacare alternative has both of these features, and so would also reduce employment relative to the pre-Obamacare status quo.) If you don't phase out the subsidies, they'll be really expensive, and you'll have to raise some tax to pay for them; that tax will also create a substitution effect that discourages work. There is a trade-off here, as with any government program that costs money: Taxes discourage work and reduce economic output, but they pay for things we value, like a near-universal health insurance entitlement.

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Obamacare may positively affect the labor market in ways not addressed in the CBO report. De-linking insurance from employment isn't just good for personal fulfillment; making it easier for people to go back to school, take jobs that don't come with health insurance, or start their own businesses should lead to better job-matching and higher productivity. It remains to be seen how much of the recent slowdown in health inflation is attributable to the ACA, but if it persists, it will have positive economic and labor market effects beyond the direct fiscal effects of the law. Slower health inflation will lower the cost of health insurance to private employers, leading to some combination of higher labor demand and higher wages.

Broadly, one key goal of health policy should be to let people make work decisions without worrying about how those decisions affect their health insurance. The CBO report shows that Obamacare partly furthers that goal (by making insurance available to more people, regardless of income or employment status) and partly inhibits it (by withdrawing benefits from people who work more). Efforts to optimize the policy should focus on de-linking work decisions from insurance, not simply on maximizing the amount of labor supply.

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Republicans say the law, America's most sweeping social legislation in decades, is an unacceptable government intrusion into healthcare. They have voted to repeal the act more than 40 times. A Gallup poll on Tuesday found Americans continue to be more likely to disapprove of the law, by 51% to 41%.

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ACA’s
subsidies for health insurance will both stimulate demand
for health care services and allow low-income households
to redirect some of the funds that they would have spent
on that care toward the purchase of other goods and services—
thereby increasing overall demand. That increase
in overall demand while the economy remains somewhat
weak will induce some employers to hire more workers or
to increase the hours of current employees during that
period.

CBO estimates that, over the next few years, the various
provisions of the ACA that affect federal revenues and
outlays will increase demand for goods and services, on
net. Most important, the expansion of Medicaid coverage
and the provision of exchange subsidies (and the resulting
rise in health insurance coverage) will not only stimulate
greater demand for health care services but also allow
lower-income households that gain subsidized coverage
to increase their spending on other goods and services—
thereby raising overall demand in the economy. A partial
offset will come from the increased taxes and reductions
in Medicare’s payments to health care providers that are
included in the ACA to offset the costs of the coverage
expansion.

On balance, CBO estimates that the ACA will boost
overall demand for goods and services over the next few
years because the people who will benefit from the expansion
of Medicaid and from access to the exchange subsidies
are predominantly in lower-income households and
thus are likely to spend a considerable fraction of their
additional resources on goods and services—whereas
people who will pay the higher taxes are predominantly
in higher-income households and are likely to change
their spending to a lesser degree. Similarly, reduced payments
under Medicare to hospitals and other providers
will lessen their income or profits, but those changes are
likely to decrease demand by a relatively small amount.
The net increase in demand for goods and services will in
turn boost demand for labor over the next few years,
CBO estimates.22 Those effects on labor demand tend to
be especially strong under conditions such as those now
prevailing in the United States, where output is so far
below its maximum sustainable level that the Federal
Reserve has kept short-term interest rates near zero for
several years and probably would not adjust those rates to offset the effects of changes in federal spending and
taxes. Over time, however, those effects are expected to
dissipate as overall economic output moves back toward
its maximum sustainable level. https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1013002/cbo-la
bor-report.pdf

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Any alternative policy to significantly expand health coverage will also have income and substitution effects that reduce labor supply. If you give out subsidies for health insurance that aren't tied to employment, you'll create an income effect that makes it easier for people to work less. If you phase out those subsidies, you'll create a substitution effect that encourages people to work fewer hours. (For example, the Republican Coburn-Burr-Hatch Obamacare alternative has both of these features, and so would also reduce employment relative to the pre-Obamacare status quo.) If you don't phase out the subsidies, they'll be really expensive, and you'll have to raise some tax to pay for them; that tax will also create a substitution effect that discourages work. There is a trade-off here, as with any government program that costs money: Taxes discourage work and reduce economic output, but they pay for things we value, like a near-universal health insurance entitlement.

Obamacare may positively affect the labor market in ways not addressed in the CBO report. De-linking insurance from employment isn't just good for personal fulfillment; making it easier for people to go back to school, take jobs that don't come with health insurance, or start their own businesses should lead to better job-matching and higher productivity. It remains to be seen how much of the recent slowdown in health inflation is attributable to the ACA, but if it persists, it will have positive economic and labor market effects beyond the direct fiscal effects of the law. Slower health inflation will lower the cost of health insurance to private employers, leading to some combination of higher labor demand and higher wages.

Broadly, one key goal of health policy should be to let people make work decisions without worrying about how those decisions affect their health insurance. The CBO report shows that Obamacare partly furthers that goal (by making insurance available to more people, regardless of income or employment status) and partly inhibits it (by withdrawing benefits from people who work more). Efforts to optimize the policy should focus on de-linking work decisions from insurance, not simply on maximizing the amount of labor supply.

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Everything else is the product of your partisan imagination. Apparently you are conflating what other folks have said elsewhere outside RWED with what I have been saying.

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Nobody is saying you misrepresented anything, Geezer, tho' your title obviously highlights the reduction in workforce and your choice of articles doesn't give all the information. But the fact remains that the right has leapt on the CBO report and is broadcasting all over everywhere that "Obamacare Will Cost 2 Million Jobs!!!!", which is a flat-out lie.

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Everything else is the product of your partisan imagination. Apparently you are conflating what other folks have said elsewhere outside RWED with what I have been saying.

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I think I was extremely clear:

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Nobody is saying you misrepresented anything, Geezer, tho' your title obviously highlights the reduction in workforce and your choice of articles doesn't give all the information. But the fact remains that the right has leapt on the CBO report and is broadcasting all over everywhere that "Obamacare Will Cost 2 Million Jobs!!!!", which is a flat-out lie.

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That IS what's been coming from the right, whether in carefully-crafted phrases or flat-out lies, and that's what I was pointing out. The article you posted to begin this thread does NOT give all the facts, and I offered some, and you have done nothing (except for this one most recent part of a sentence) but focus on the negatives, as you always do.

"I'm pointing out, first, that the CBO's original and revised figures for workforce reduction are quite different." That is absolutely untrue. You titled this thread "'Obamacare' will reduce US workforce, report finds" and posted an article about same WITH NO COMMENT. Within the article is one statement, "In Tuesday's report, the nonpartisan CBO said work hours would be reduced by the equivalent of 2.3 million full-time workers by 2021. It had previously estimated the health law would result in 800,000 fewer workers." The entire rest of the article is about the reduction in workforce. You didn't "point out" "first" anything about the difference in estimates until an ADDED "ETA" in your second post, and never mentioned it again, until now. Is any of that untrue?

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"Then you complain "The subheadings: "'Making it worse'" (quoting Boehner), seven paragraphs."

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'Empowered'

But the White House said the impact on the workforce would be due to voluntary steps by workers rather than businesses cutting jobs.

The law will leave people "empowered to make choices about their own lives and livelihoods", said White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.

He added that the law would allow participants the freedom to retire early or become stay-at-home parents.

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'Empowered'

But the White House said the impact on the workforce would be due to voluntary steps by workers rather than businesses cutting jobs.

The law will leave people "empowered to make choices about their own lives and livelihoods", said White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.

He added that the law would allow participants the freedom to retire early or become stay-at-home parents.

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"Correspondingly, the negative effects of exchange subsidies to work will be relevant primarily for a limited segment of the population - mostly people who have no offer of employee-based coverage and who's income is either below or near 400 percent of the FPL (Federal Poverty Level),"

"Negative effects of exchange subsidies to work will be relevant primarily..." sounds a lot like "hardest hit" to me.

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Correspondingly, the negative effects of exchange subsidies
on incentives to work will be relevant primarily for a
limited segment of the population—mostly people who
have no offer of employment-based coverage and whose
income is either below or near 400 percent of the FPL.

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